Advice for buying an ND filter please

dinneenp

Hi,
I'd like to buy an ND filter (some great photos by Richard Hurst on this site) but don't want to shell out massive amounts of money for somehting I mightn't use that much. The 'cheapest good solution' is what I'm looking for; if it's €30 great, if it's €50+ then so be it...

Can anyone tell me where I can buy one for a reasonable price (don't mind new or second hand), what brands to go for/avoid etc?

I know nothing about them expect that B&W and Hoya are good brands but not cheap.

Cheers,
Pat.

gloobag

I recently got a Light Craft Fader ND. They're pricey enough, but very handy as they're variable from 2 to 8 stops.

Highly recommended for both photo and video.

OldGoat

I went the cheap and cheerful route. Bought a set of 2, 4 and 8 ND's from China for about €20. I bought them for doing abstracty blurrey intentional camera movement weird stuff so quality doesn't bother me that much however when I use them to take a few long exposures on rivers they worked well enough indivudally but started get mucky when I ganged them together. I've yet to try using them with the long exposure noise reduction parameter in the camera software - that might help a little.

If you ever want to play around with them...:)

rain on

What diameter are you looking for? I have a 58mm one I can bring in to work for you to have a go on if that's any use to you. Will be selling it before the end of the year as well.

dinneenp

rain on wrote: »

What diameter are you looking for? I have a 58mm one I can bring in to work for you to have a go on if that's any use to you. Will be selling it before the end of the year as well.

thanks, I'm looking for a 67mm to fit my Tamron 17-50 f2.8 lens.
Just checked my Sigma 30mm f1.4 but that's 62mm.

Someone suggested this. 7dayshop Lens Filter - Variable ND (Neutral Density) for £28 & £5 postage. might be worth a try

nilhg

I bought a Formatt-HiTech square 10 stop ND to fit my Cokin filter holder, I havn't had time to give it much of a run yet but in the limited use I've given it I'm happy enough.

http://www.formatt.co.uk/stills-filters/filters/standard-n-d/stills-filters.aspx

Personally I'd go for the Cokin system over screw in filters for Nd and Nd grads, it's a much more flexible system.

LeoB

nilhg wrote: »

I bought a Formatt-HiTech square 10 stop ND to fit my Cokin filter holder, I havn't had time to give it much of a run yet but in the limited use I've given it I'm happy enough.

http://www.formatt.co.uk/stills-filters/filters/standard-n-d/stills-filters.aspx

Personally I'd go for the Cokin system over screw in filters for Nd and Nd grads, it's a much more flexible system.

I get a horrible cast when I stack the Cokin filters. Used on their own they are fine. I am looking at getting a set of 3 Tiffen filters 72mm from www.Adorama,com $119 and prob about $50 for postage unless I get them picked up for me.

nilhg

LeoB wrote: »

I get a horrible cast when I stack the Cokin filters. Used on their own they are fine. I am looking at getting a set of 3 Tiffen filters 72mm from www.Adorama,com $119 and prob about $50 for postage unless I get them picked up for me.

Not disagreeing with you at all but you can use other brands of filters on the Cokin system holder including Tiffen.

LeoB

nilhg wrote: »

Not disagreeing with you at all but you can use other brands of filters on the Cokin system holder including Tiffen.

Thanks nilhg for your reply and I think you answered something I was thinking about. Stacking Tiffen filters is possible? Do they screw onto each other?

Im actually picking up a 3stop Cokin ND on Thursday when Im coming through Newry as I cant get into Dublin. Someone said there might be a holder or gadget to stop the light cast on Cokin filters?.
Seems the problem is caused by the gap between the filters and the light reflects As said earlier Cokin filters are fine. They are a very affordable and easy to use.

nilhg

LeoB wrote: »

Thanks nilhg for your reply and I think you answered something I was thinking about. Stacking Tiffen filters is possible? Do they screw onto each other?

There are Tiffen filters that fit into the Cokin P system filter holder, straight ND though not grads

LeoB wrote: »

Im actually picking up a 3stop Cokin ND on Thursday when Im coming through Newry as I cant get into Dublin. Someone said there might be a holder or gadget to stop the light cast on Cokin filters?.
Seems the problem is caused by the gap between the filters and the light reflects As said earlier Cokin filters are fine. They are a very affordable and easy to use.

I find a couple of issues with my Cokin filters, as you say there is a slight colour cast which can be more noticeable when you stack them, though if you are careful and shoot in RAW it can be corrected in PP.

If you are shooting into or near the Sun (and that's why we use filters;) you'll get much more flare in your shots and the more filters you have stacked the more flare there will be, dearer filters with better coatings would probably reduce this but I don't know if it's possible to eliminate it.

At times I get quite a lot of vignetting with the stronger Cokin ND grads, sometimes this is worse than others and I need to sit down sometime and try to figure out why.

djd80

I bought a few filters from www.maxsaver.net . Hard to beat the price. I use screw in filters rather than the filter holders though, find them much handier.

dermiek

A polariser is also basically an ND filter.
Obviously you need the circular type, but 2 different filters for one.